People believed that an all-girls school was less rowdy, but they overlooked the fact that girls are, on the general, chattier and more prone to unwarranted squeals and giggles than boys. At lunch break, the chatters in Chaerin’s classroom braided into a grating pitch over the scrape of utensils against lunchboxes. Most of the time, Chaerin was one of the participants, and the noise, which was uncannily similar to a flock of birds twittering simultaneously, was natural to her and therefore acceptable. But on the days she needed to think, the noise clogged her neurons and impede the flow of her thoughts.

This day, she needed to think more than ever. When the lunch bell shrilled through the school, Chaerin grabbed her lunchbox and signalled Solyi to follow her out of the classroom, as they’d agreed over a text message before classes started that morning.

“Have you read Dalyeoshim’s update yesterday?” Solyi asked as they headed down the length of the corridor.  “I cried buckets. I don’t think she’s going to give them a happy ending.”

Chaerin glanced sidelong at Solyi. “She updated?”

Solyi halted in her steps to do a dramatic double take, springing away from Chaerin as if Chaerin were a poisonous plant. “What did you do to my best friend, you imposter? You better return her to me before you regret in the flames of my fury.” Solyi’s cherubic face was a convincing canvas of warning and suspicion when she spoke, but Chaerin’d witnessed enough of Solyi’s theatrics over the course of their two-year friendship to know better than to take her seriously.

Chaerin rolled her eyes, pushing Solyi’s temple in a reprimand not without affection and playfulness. “Don’t be childish.”

A pair of seventh graders were coming toward them from the opposite direction, likely to be headed to the washrooms at the end of the corridor. Their footsteps slowed timidly when they saw Chaerin and Solyi, both ninth graders, blocking their way. Like many other schools in South Korea, whether gendered or co-ed, their school had an unofficial and unspoken but deeply entrenched hierarchy where the difference in one school grade meant a whole world of difference in the level of coolness. Lower graders walked on eggshells around the higher graders, and higher graders never missed the chance to act coolly in the lower graders’ presence. The same could be said for Chaerin.

Nonchalantly, Chaerin pulled Solyi out of the seventh graders’ way. When the seventh graders skittered past them, they squeaked their thanks, to which Chaerin only acknowledged with a solemn nod.

When the seventh graders were out of earshot, Solyi cringed. “You’re not an imposter after all. You still give me the same goosebumps I get whenever I see you pretending to be cool.”

 “And what about you?” Chaerin rebuked, out of the habit of bantering with Solyi than having taken actual offense at Solyi’s words. “Pretending or not, you don’t even come a hair-breadth’s closer to being cool.”

Solyi grinned goofily. “That’s why I don't even bother to try.”

Chaerin laughed, her fondness for Solyi shooting an inch up its almost full meter.  

As they turned a corner to hop down the stairs, Chaerin asked, “So what did Dalyeoshim do to Seungchan and Kwangyeol?”

Solyi launched into an animated recap of yesterday’s update, even though in all honesty, it was more of personal commentary than a real recap.  Since the fanfic began on a Naver blog three months ago, Chaerin had been a dogged follower, captivated by the alternate universe storyline of two best friends navigating the complex tangle of their friendship to realise that it had always been each other that they loved. As Solyi chattered on, Chaerin listened with half-hearted interest, her mind wandering to another pair of best friends in her life. 

“You’re not listening to me,” accused Solyi as they stepped out of the school’s main building, a welcomingly cool air swaddling their faces. In the aftermath of the rain earlier, the field was polka-dotted with puddles of muddy water. “You know, you’re behaving really weirdly for the past few days,” commented Solyi. “First, other than a patronizing ‘that’s cute’, you were indifferent when I showed the photo of Seungchan and Kwangyeol exchanging whispers. And now, you missed Dalyeoshim’s update when you’re the one who has been obsessed with the story enough to check it every other hour. What’s up with you?”

“I’m just busy with other things,” said Chaerin, avoiding Solyi’s searching eyes.

Solyi frowned uncertainly. Suddenly, Solyi stopped in her steps for the second time since they were released for lunch, her eyes wide with horror. She grabbed Chaerin’s shoulders, clamping them between her hands, the lunchbox dangling from her wrist bumping into Chaerin’s arm.

“What?” Chaerin asked, mildly irritated.

“Are you abandoning Seungyeol for another ship?” Solyi asked fearfully.

Chaerin’s eyes drifted in thought to the line of trees a distance away, mulling. That’s not too far from the truth, she thought.

At Chaerin’s ominous hesitation, Solyi’s lips wobbled in pleading. “Please tell me that I’m not going to lose my best spazzing partner.”

“Of course you’re not,” replied Chaerin. She shrugged away Solyi’s hold on her shoulders and continued the journey to the far side of the field where the pavilion was.

Solyi caught up with Chaerin. “Then what are you busy with?”

“The mid-terms,” lied Chaerin.

“But that’s still two months away!”

“I have a reputation to secure,” said Chaerin, skirting a puddle. “Don’t want to lost my spot to you-know-who.”

After every examination, their school would rank all the students in each level according to their academic performance. The meter-long chart would be pinned on the notice board outside the general office and, for a month, every member of the school - students, teachers, janitors - had the chance to scrutinise the chart. Although Chaerin had the inkling that the practice was intended to shame than to glorify, she couldn’t deny that it felt good to see her name hovering at the top every time.

Sometimes she was first; other times, second, The person whom she frequently toggled places with was a girl called Jihye from the next class. Ever since that time Jihye cut her queue at the bus stop, Chaerin had felt a childish animosity towards Jihye. That had happened during her first year in this middle school. She was now in her third and final.

Their rivalry had been obvious but contained between themselves. Their respective classmates had been acceptably amicable to one another. However, after a netball competition between their classes went sour and ended in an almost catfight, that kind of class-class friendliness had been burnt to an unrecognisable crisp. Snide glances from many pairs of eyes were exchanged in the hallways, and hostility rode high whenever the two classes were made to stand side by side during assembly, which was pretty much always. What used to be individual glory was now honour for the class. At least once a week, one or two of Chaerin’s classmates would tell her to “get that number one and show them who are the kings (or, sometimes, queens)”. Chaerin didn’t fail them. For the last examination, she’d beaten Jihye with a percentage point of one-point-five to come in first.

 “That’s true.” Solyi nodded thoughtfully. “You’re the shining pride of our class. I’ll forgive you.” Her arm swept across Chaerin with an air of a ruler exonerating a sinner.

Chaerin curtseyed. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

They arrived at the pavilion to find their favourite spot at the edge pebbled with water droplets from the rain slashing in just now. . They ventured deeper in and settled on a dry bench at the pavilion’s dead center. They opened their lunch boxes on their laps and began to eat.

 Despite being on the same square of land as the rest of the school, the pavilion seemed to be seemed in a separate dimension, not only because of its traditional architecture, but also of the peace that surrounded it. The only sounds here came from nature - leaves rustling, wind whistling and insects humming in bushes.

In the relative quiet of the pavilion (as always, Solyi was too busy demolishing her food to initiate any conversation), Chaerin  circled around the carousel of thoughts that had spun in her mind since Saturday. Round and round she went. She became dizzy, but no clear insight had presented itself. She decided to ask Solyi.

“How long do you think two guys could be friends with each other before realising they’re in love with each other?” Chaerin’s voice wafted up the pavilion’s high and pointed roof and bounced off in faint echoes.

Solyi’s brows creased in thought as her mouth chomped furiously. A few seconds later, she gulped down the food in her mouth and answered, “That’s not a valid question. You’re assuming two guys would definitely fall in love with each other as long as they’ve been friends long enough. And that is not true. Because if it is, all men on earth would be gays and we’d all be wiped out.”

 “Let me rephrase my question. How do you decide if two seemingly straight men are friends or something more?”

“Skinship,” answered Solyi readily and confidently. “Do they snake their arms around each other’s waists? Or talk about each other like their lives depended on it?” The more Solyi went on, the more the passionate glitter in her eyes intensified. “Do they look at each other like they are the only ones left in the universe?”

“In other words, your expertise in this area is limited to your experience in fantasising about the relationships in boy groups,” said Chaerin dryly, her hopes that Solyi could offer some sort of wisdom blown into smithereens. She shook her head in dismay, the hair she’d chopped short a few weeks ago tickling her nape. “I should have known better than to ask you.”

“Ouch,” deadpanned Solyi. “That stings.”Chaerin looked at Solyi, and knew that she’d hurt Solyi’s feelings when Solyi looked away.

Chaerin nudged Solyi with her elbow. “Hey, I didn’t mean it. Forgive me again?”

Solyi fixed her eyes in the distance with mute determination.

Chaerin skewered a piece of her egg roll with her chopsticks and transferred it into Solyi’s lunch box. “Take this as a token of my apology.”

Solyi flicked a cool glance at Chaerin. Then, her chopsticks flashing forward with blurring speed, Solyi swiped the biggest piece of fried chicken tenders from Chaerin’s lunchbox. She crammed it into her mouth before Chaerin could protest.

“Apology accepted,” said Solyi, her voice garbled by her stuffed mouth. It was amazing how she managed to grin despite her bulging cheeks.

Chaerin leapt into combat mode, reaching her chopsticks over. “Return me my egg roll.” Solyi shielded her lunchbox protectively. “You can have my veggies,” said Solyi, and green beans and broccoli florets pattered into Chaerin’s lunchbox. Chaerin whacked Solyi’s arm but had otherwise given up on getting her egg roll back. There was no winning Solyi when it came to food.

“Anyway, why do you want to know how to tell whether two men are in love with each other?” Solyi asked.

Chaerin shrugged non-committally, taking a deliberately long time to chew her food and keep her mouth busy so that Solyi couldn’t force a confession out of her.

“But if you really want to know,” continued Solyi, “you should ask someone who has real-life experience. You know,” her head bobbed sideways “a gay.”

Chaerin snorted, nearly sending food into her windpipe. “Yeah, I could totally approach a random person on the street and say ‘Excuse me, are you a gay? If you are, could you help me out here?’.” Solyi opened her mouth, but Chaerin beat her to it. “And no gay bars or clubs. I’m underage. My father will murder me if I go to those kind of places.”

“I’m offended that you think I’d suggest that,” said Solyi indignantly. “Just so you know, I happen to know someone who’s gay, and who doesn’t work at a gay bar or a gay club. He may have the answers you want.”

“Who’s this person?” Chaerin squinted skeptically at Solyi.

“A really well-known fashion designer.”

“And why would you know a really well-known fashion designer?”

“He’s…” Solyi visibly tensed.  Then she shook her head breezily to recompose herself., “I just do. If you want, I can connect you to him.”

Chaerin’s first instinct was to nod her head, but the voice of reason dwelling at the back of her mind intervened. If she agreed, Solyi would tag along without fail, and she’d know the distasteful thoughts that beleaguered Chaerin’s mind. Chaerin couldn’t let that happen. It was one thing to ship make-believe gay couples out of boy groups, and another to wish that your father and his best friend, also a man, to be in love with each other.

“Thank you, but I think I’m close to figuring it out,” said Chaerin in the end.

It was obvious that Solyi wasn’t convinced. She shrugged. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

“What’s his name anyway?” Chaerin asked after a long pulse of silence, keeping her voice carefully aloof. She pretended to be captivated by the baby carrot stick wedged between her chopsticks, as if her question was a natural afterthought and she didn’t really care whether or not Solyi answered. Her ears, though, were a different story. She tuned them to full concentration, ready to catch every syllable of the name and commit them to memory.

 Three seconds went by. Chaerin only heard the wind howling through the pavilion. For a moment she was worried that Solyi’d seen through her act. She glanced up and nearly rolled her eyes. Solyi was struggling to chew through cheekfuls of food. So much for worrying.

Finally, with some difficulty, Solyi swallowed. She guzzled from Chaerin’s water bottle.

“Sorry.” Solyi grinned sheepishly, drawing a handkerchief across her mouth. “Oh, and his name is Do Nasuk.”

That evening, with her hair still dripping from her shower, Chaerin settled before her laptop and typed the name into Naver’s search bar. It generated more than twenty thousand hits. Curling her lower lip under her teeth, she scanned the summary displayed at the top of the page:

Do Nasuk is a South Korean fashion designer based in Seoul. He first rose to national fame and critical acclaim after designing Phoenix Arising, which was worn by Son Doona at the 13^th Blue Dragon Film Festival. He has since gone on to tailor dramatic pieces for the international stage. Last year, he was named designer of the year by Vogue Magazine. He is the owner and sole designer of OX:OX, a high-end women fashion label located in Gangnam.

She clicked on the image section of the search results and a grid of photos filled her screen. Most of them were repetitive of a bald-headed man in black-framed spectacles smiling widely, his arms crossed confidently over his chest. Do Nasuk appeared to be between his late thirties and early forties, although he might be older considering the crow’s feet fanning out from the corner of his eyes.

He looks kind, Chaerin observed, an unexpected relief creeping into her body.

She scrolled down, moving past photos of the designers and on to his works, which resembled stiff sculptures more than actual clothing people could wear. There was a orange-red one with jagged neckline that licked past the model’s shoulders, giving the illusion that she was engulfed in a flame frozen in time. Another looked like it was inspired by an iceberg, its pale blue fabric extending up behind the model’s head before tapering to a point inches above. She wasn’t sure what to make of these clothing.

Her fingers on the mouse’s scrolling wheel halted when a particular photo caught her attention. In it, Do Nasuk stood on the red carpet, against a backdrop of reporters packed on the side lines. One of his hand was up in a mid-wave, and his other was tightly intertwined with that of the man next to him. They looked to be about the same age.

She clicked on the image and read the caption that appeared:

Do Nasuk attending fashion week with partner, Lee Pyeongsung.

Although she hadn’t doubted Solyi, the affirmation of Do Nasuk’s sexuality still sent a thrill fizzling down Chaerin’s spine. Maybe he could help her decipher what she couldn’t. Maybe he could give her answers.

She straightened herself and leaned forward into her laptop, tucking her right foot under her left thigh. After digging around on the Internet for a few more minutes, she grabbed her pen and ripped a corner off the nearest sheet of paper. On it, she scribbled Do Nasuk’s boutique address.

As she sucked on the end of her pen, the gears in her mind began to turn. As much as she ached to pay Do Nasuk a visit tomorrow, it would be impossible. She needed to prepare and gather ‘materials’ before she could have a fruitful and efficient discussion with the designer. However, the sources of her materials wouldn’t be seeing each other until Saturday. It was only Tuesday today. She didn’t have the patience to wait that long.

Using a foot, she nudged the swivel chair she was on in a slow clockwise rotation. Her eyes roved from the sky-blue walls of her room to the ratty bunny on her bed, to the host of concert memorabilia on her shelf. As she did so, she assessed her options. By the time her eyes ended their wander on a poster of K7, an idea was taking shape in her head.

A slow, mischievous smile spread across her face. She reached for her iPhone.

Simple ideas were the best.

As she sat at the dining table with Kyuhyun and Ryeowook on Wednesday night, Chaerin had the vague impression that it was a Saturday, until her sensible mind reminded her that this was what she had orchestrated.

Kyuhyun stared at his plate. “Not that I’m complaining, but can someone tell me why we’re having blueberry pancakes for dinner on a weekday night?” He looked at Ryeowook, who in turn tilted his head at Chaerin. Didn’t you tell your appa?

 “I felt like having Ryeowook-oppa’s pancakes. It has been a long - ” Chaerin dragged out the word, “ - time since I’ve had them.”

“And that couldn’t wait till the weekends?” Kyuhyun asked, pushing his knife through his pancake stack.

“It was an urgent craving,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’m feeling pretty anti-oxidant-deprived these days.” She kept her outward expression cool. Internally, she winced at her feeble and somewhat nonsensical reason.

“You didn’t have to indulge her,” said Kyuhyun to Ryeowook, the merest hint of reproach in his voice. “It’s a weekday night. You have to work tomorrow.”

. Chaerin’s mental pen scribbled furiously across her equally mental notebook as she prodded her butter square in a delicious trail over the surface of her topmost pancake. Appa disapproves of Ryeowook-oppa cooking for us during weekdays because he’s worried that Ryeowook-oppa would be tired.

“Only this time,” promised Ryeowook, his eyes twinkling in fondness at Chaerin.

A tendril of unease poked at Chaerin’s conscience for capitalizing on Ryeowook’s affection toward her to orchestrate this dinner. Only this time. In her head, she repeated Ryeowook’s words to herself. She stashed her guilt out of the way so that she could focus on her task tonight..

An idea struck her. “Appa, why don’t you drive Ryeowook-oppa home later?”

“I’ll just - ”

Grab a cab, finished a bored voice in Chaerin’s head, and she wondered why she even bothered to suggest that in the first place. Except for the few times where there was a downpour, Ryeowook hardly accepted Kyuhyun’s offer to send him home, and that was the standard rejection phrase he used.

But tonight, before Ryeowook could complete his sentence, Kyuhyun interrupted.

“I’ll send you home,” said Kyuhyun firmly. “It’s not easy to get a cab here at this hour, this time of the week.”

If her hands weren’t holding a knife and a fork, Chaerin would have brandished a thumbs up at her father. His assertiveness surprised her. Most of the time, he went along with Ryeowook’s wishes without so much as a persuasion. It must be a weekday effect.

Ryeowook was caught by surprise too. Before he could recover from it, Chaerin said to him, in tone that brooked no argument, “That’s that. Appa will send you home. It’s gesture of our appreciation for this dinner you’ve made on last minute notice.”

“Always the glib girl,” said Ryeowook, shaking his head in surrender.

“Of course. She has got my genes,” said Kyuhyun proudly. Ryeowook laughed.

Chaerin grinned as she spooned a generous glop of blueberry puree onto her pancakes, and smeared it with a zeal that matched her high spirits.

“Actually, Ryeowook-oppa,” she asked as she stabbed a forkful of pancakes and brought it to her lips, “Why don’t you drive?”

Ryeowook stiffened, and Kyuhyun paused midway in his drizzling honey over his pancakes. The amiable atmosphere vanished and a beat of silence expanded, too thick and tense for such a casual question. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook exchanged a fleeting glance. Something glimmered between them; something that they didn’t want her to know.

They share secrets, scrawled Chaerin in her mental notebook, her eyes swinging from Kyuhyun to Ryeowook. Secrets that they’re keeping from me.

Ryeowook shifted, recomposing himself. “I find it too much of a hassle to maintain a car.” Even though he was smiling, there was a tightness around his lips.

Chaerin nodded, pretending to be convinced as she shoved the pancakes into her mouth. At some point in the future, she’d drill their shared secrets out into the light to quench her curiosity. But not now. Tonight was reserved for her other goals.

Throughout dinner, Chaerin jotted down her observation of the interactions between Kyuhyun and Ryeowook. The way their hands grazed when they reached for the butter at the same time. The attentive way Kyuhyun looked at Ryeowook whenever the latter spoke.

The three of them assumed their usual cleaning roles when they finished their food. Chaerin moved a damp rag around the surface of the dining table, wiping away the sticky stains. Kyuhyun returned from the corridor after ridding the trash at the communal chute, and went back into the kitchen. The movement of her hand slowed, then stopped completely when, through the kitchen’s doorway, she saw her father falling into place next to where Ryeowook was washing dishes.

Chaerin left the cleaning cloth on the table and slipped silently toward the kitchen. She hid in the shadow of wall and peered around it. At the sink, Kyuhyun and Ryeowook stood shoulder to shoulder, working in a silence fringed by running water and the tinkle of steel utensils against porcelain plates. Ryeowook scoured. Kyuhyun rinsed.

Discreetly, she pulled out her phone from her hoodie’s belly pocket and activated its camera.

Later that night, splayed belly-down on her bed with her calves sticking into the air, she swiped through the photos she’d snapped in secret. At one particular photo, her heart stopped. It captured her father’s profile, at that precise moment where he’d turned his head to look at Ryeowook. She stared at the photo for many minutes, unable to peel her gaze away from the look in her father’s eyes.

At fifteen, she hadn’t experienced true love, but she thought that the softness in her father’s gaze must be how it looked like.

The crooning tones of a jazz singer issued from the radio, and the engine hummed unobtrusively in the background. The inside of the car was otherwise quiet, an evidence of Kyuhyun’s failed endeavours in striking a conversation with Ryeowook.

It wasn’t always like this when they found themselves alone with each other. Usually, Kyuhyun would spark a topic - an offhand comment about the weather, a recount of his most recent courtroom battle, or something he’d noted about Chaerin - and Ryeowook would oblige, asking questions and offering opinions, until the atmosphere between them came alive. They would dance around the bonfire of their conversation, their feet avoiding with practiced precision the things that couldn’t be brought up without rousing heartache.

On a stretch of the highway with sparse traffic, Kyuhyun took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at Ryeowook. Ryeowook’s eyes were troubled and distant, his lips pursed. Kyuhyun knew exactly why: Just now Chaerin’s question had come too close. Unlike what Ryeowook had told Chaerin, the fuss of maintaining a car wasn’t why Ryeowook didn’t drive. Although Ryeowook never said it himself, Kyuhyun understood that the trauma of the car accident ten years ago had never quite left Ryeowook alone. Confessing that to Chaerin would only spawn more questions and… Kyuhyun shuddered to think how the conversation would have unfolded.

Chaerin knew that Yeonjae had lost her life in a car accident. But what she didn’t know was that Ryeowook had been involved in the same wreckage, and that he had been the driver. They’d never been able to tell Chaerin what exactly happened, partly because there hadn’t been an appropriate time for them to do so, and mainly because there was no certainty over how she would react.  She’d become so emotionally reliant on Ryeowook after Yeonjae’s death that it had seemed incredibly cruel to undo her safety net.

As Chaerin grew up, there were times where she talked about Yeonjae with Kyuhyun, reminiscing over what little memories of her mother she’d retained and probing Kyuhyun cheekily about their courtship. Whenever Yeonjae’s death was broached, Kyuhyun left out Ryeowook’s involvement by default, convinced that in doing so he was protecting two people.

However, with each passing day, Chaerin was becoming more astute and eagle-eyed. Kyuhyun had caught the skepticism flashing behind her eyes when Ryeowook had offered his excuse. Someday, she would catch the tiny holes of missing logic in Kyuhyun’s story, and she’d pry at them, gouging them wider until the unabridged truth comes tumbling out.

How would she handle that? How would all of them?

Kyuhyun veered into the car park below Ryeowook’s apartment and pulled to a stop at the drop-off area. Ryeowook offered his thanks and unbuckled his seatbelt. He had already opened the passenger door and was about to slide out of the car when Kyuhyun called his name.

“Ryeowook.”

Ryeowook angled his head over his shoulder, his eyes distracted and lost.

“It’ll be okay,” said Kyuhyun.

Silence washed in as they held each other gazes. Kyuhyun pored deep into Ryeowook’s eyes, bright in the glow of the street lamps, and hoped against all odds that this time, Ryeowook would open his heart to him and let him into his fears and troubles. To the people who knew them, they were best friends. But Kyuhyun knew all too well that their relationship was a ghost of their friendship in the past. They could chitchat with each other about many things, but not about the matters that skim too close to their hearts. Those were dangerous, prone to unleashing everything they had tried so desperately to keep in check and toppling the balance they had painstakingly built together over the years. Patiently, Kyuhyun would yearn and hope for their relationship to be restored, but he wouldn’t push. The last thing Kyuhyun wanted was to drive Ryeowook out of his life.

Ryeowook smiled and nodded, sweeping his troubles under a smooth, unperturbed mask. That was Kyuhyun’s cue to pedal back into his role as an unobtrusive friend. Kyuhyun swallowed a sigh; even though a decade had passed, Ryeowook’s heart was still locked tight and kept out of Kyuhyun’s reach.

Kyuhyun squashed the familiar disappointment aside. When he spoke, he adopted a falsely upbeat voice. “Well, then. Have a good rest. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

 “Thanks for the ride home.” Ryeowook’s voice was light, as was his smile, but there was a trace of weariness in both. “Good night.”

Kyuhyun watched as Ryeowook walked away from the car. When Ryeowook’d disappeared into the lift lobby, Kyuhyun got out of the driver’s seat and angled his head skyward. Like all those years ago where he’d cycled Ryeowook home after a late night mugging session, he didn’t leave until the lights in Ryeowook’s house came on.

Since his father’s passing a few years ago, Ryeowook came home to an empty house every night. After stepping into the house, he went through the same set of motions - turning on the music player, preparing a simple one-person dinner and then doing the dishes.

Coming back from Kyuhyun’s place that night, he skipped all of those and headed straight for a shower, then did his laundry. As the washing machine grumbled and lurched in the background, he ironed the clothes that’d accumulated over the past few days, even though ironing was a chore reserved for Sundays.

He focused every ounce of his attention in chasing away the creases in the fabric. His eyes followed the movement of his hand as it guided the iron between buttons and over sleeves and collars. Still, that wasn’t enough to quieten the guilt that niggled at the back of his mind, like a whiny puppy begging for attention and urging him to give in.

Later, he told it tiredly.

When eleven came, Ryeowook stood before his wardrobe and hooked his freshly pressed shirts along the rack where their counterparts dangled like wraiths in the dim bedroom light. The wardrobe door rumbled against the groove as he slid it close.

Finally, with nothing else to occupy him, he let his guilt out of its cage.

His guilt used to force him to the edge of the precipice where insanity was, and where his last conversation with Yeonjae was put on an infinite loop, her sorrowful voice a ceaseless pounding in his head. Over the last decade, he’d learned how to manage it, like a pet. Sometimes it curled docilely against him, its presence nothing more than a weight on his chest. Other times, it demanded more, scratching into him an ache that wouldn’t subside for days.

Tonight, it did more than either of that. It was feral, with claws and fangs so sharp as though it just came into being yesterday. Its impact forced him two steps back, and he sank onto the edge of his bed. A shaky breath trembled out of him.

His guilt was not only toward Yeonjae, but also toward Chaerin. He’d robbed her of her mother, but she was also the rope he clung onto to pull himself out of the murky waters of misery where no light could be gleaned. The hypocrisy of all these was plain. He was disgusting.

He had made a pact with himself a long time ago that he’d confess the truth about Yeonjae’s death to Chaerin when she was old enough. It wouldn’t be fair to keep it from her forever, and she would hear it from nobody but himself. If she knew what he’d done, would she still want him in her life?

No. No, she wouldn’t. She would hate him, and his lifeline would snap. He’d be severed loose from the people he’d loved most in his life, and be set adrift once more.

Pain exploded in Ryeowook’s chest, tunnelling outwards and numbing his senses. His eyes burned.

The day of confession was looming; Chaerin’d already begun to ask questions. He had always thought that he would be ready when that day came, but he wasn’t, and never would be.

How did anyone prepare himself to be hated by a child he had come to love as his own?

TBC

::::::::::

A/N: A big thank you for the support you've shown for the last chapter! ^^